Quotes

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[first lines]

Ada:
The voice you hear is not my speaking voice - -but my mind's voice. I have not spoken since I was six years old. No one knows why - -not even me. My father says it is a dark talent, and the day I take it into my head to stop breathing will be my last. Today he married me to a man I have not yet met. Soon my daughter and I shall join him in his own country. My husband writes that my muteness does not bother him - and hark this! He says, "God loves dumb creatures, so why not I?" 'Twere good he had God's patience, for silence affects everyone in the end. The strange thing is, I don't think myself silent. That is because of my piano. I shall miss it on the journey.

Ada:
At night! I think of my piano in its ocean grave, and sometimes of myself floating above it. Down there everything is so still and silent that it lulls me to sleep. It is a weird lullaby and so it is; it is mine.

George Baines:
Ada, I'm unhappy. 'Cause I want you. 'Cause my mind has seized on you and can think of nothing else. This is why I've suffered. I am sick with longing. I don't eat, I don't sleep. So, if you have come with no feeling for me, then go. Go. Go. Get out. Leave!

Aunt Morag:
You know, I am thinking of the piano. She does not play the piano like we do, Nessie. Up. Up! No, she is a strange creature. And her playing is strange, like a mood that passes into you. Up! Now, your playing is plain and true, and that is what I like. To have a sound creep inside you is not at all pleasant. What's that?

Flora:
One day when my mother and father were singing together in the forest, a great storm blew up out of nowhere. But so passionate was their singing that they did not notice, nor did they stop as the rain began to fall, and when their voices rose for the final bars of the duet a great bolt of lighting came out of the sky and struck my father so that he lit up like a torch. And at the same moment my father was struck dead my mother was struck dumb! She never spoke another word.

Flora:
She says its her piano and she won't have him touch it. He's an oaf. He can't read. He's ignorant.

Stewart:
He wants to improve himself. And you'll be able to play it. Teach him how to look after it. You can't go on like this. We're a family now. We all make sacrifices and so will you! You will teach him and I will see to it!

George Baines:
[to Ada]
Ada, wait. Wait. Do you know how to bargain? There's a way you can have your piano back. Do you want it back? Do you want it back? You see, I'd like us to make a deal. There's things I'd... like to do while you play. If you let me, you can earn it back. What do you think? One visit for every key.

Stewart:
[to George Baines]
She has spoken to me. I heard her voice. There was no sound, but I heard it here. Her voice was there in my head. I watched her lips, they did not make the words, yet the harder I listened the clearer I heard her, as clear as I hear you, as clear as I hear my own voice.